


Go Viral

by lixabiz



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: All The Tropes That Come With it, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - All Human, F/M, Fake!Engaged, Professor!Ten, Vitex Heiress!Rose, and more - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-02
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 11:15:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4057936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lixabiz/pseuds/lixabiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A viral video forces medical researcher John Smith into a fake engagement with Vitex heiress Rose Tyler, who is desperate to keep the tabloids from further blackening her already tattered reputation. For anniviech on Tumblr :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

It started with a video.

But perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it started with a video that neither of them could remember being in.

One blasted video - gone viral.

Laying the blame on the alcohol, that was too easy, too clichéd, and he was loathe to do so. Besides, that would mean putting part of the onus on himself and on her, given that they had been the ones to ingest said alcohol.

(Which was to say: copious amounts, very unwise and very ill-advised, especially at a party hosted by a certain Mister Jack Harkness.)

(Hell, they ought to lay the blame at Jack’s feet, when all was said and done.)

(He should’ve known better, in other words.)

The day his life changed had an inauspicious beginning. It started with his alarm clock failing to wake him, despite the usually effective shrill beeping it affected at 6AM. He did the unthinkable - he slept through it, until well after eight. A pounding headache and the feeling of sawdust in his mouth let him know that all his prior misgivings were correct: it had been a mistake to attend Jack’s 35th birthday party the night before. Dr. John Smith crawled out of bed, miserable and full of regret and running late.

His mobile buzzed a few times while he was in the bathroom, trying to make himself look human, but it died quickly. He’d forgotten to charge it - probably because he’d been too drunk when he’d got in last night. A few missed calls and texts were the least of his concerns though, and so he ignored them in favour of nearly slicing up his own face whilst shaving in a hurry. His hands kept trembling. It was all Very Not Good.

And so it wasn’t until quarter after nine that he flew into his lab, where his assistant was setting up materials for today’s experiment, a rather important one that would determine roughly 40% of the final grade for seven students. All of whom stared at him balefully and with some measure of apprehension as he knocked over two stools and a free-standing white-board in his haste.

This he chalked up to their nerves, though he couldn’t quite reason out why all the other students in the hallways of the University had behaved so strangely upon crossing paths with him. John only taught two courses and had a mere handful of students - so the giggling and pointing and whispers behind covered mouths had been very perplexing. However, he’d been in such a rush he hadn’t stopped to find answers.

“Let’s begin,” he announced, trying for professionalism. It wasn’t easy, given that he was wearing mismatched socks, wrinkled trousers, and a Proclaimers t-shirt under his blazer, the closest items in reach of the bed. John had the depressing thought that this must have been what he’d worn to Jack’s party, and winced, because the t-shirt reeked of floral perfume, decidedly not of his own choosing.

(Unfortunately, he hadn’t remembered to bring a fresh labcoat with him, either. His other one was too soil-ridden to be worn again, so he was forced to make do without.)

A tapping sound on the window of the lab doors, which were always deadbolted during experiments, caught his attention. He frowned. The lab was well under way, no possible entry now, and there was nothing John hated more than people who showed up late for appointments, work, or classes.

The face in the window was young and blonde and pretty, but he steadfastly ignored it. He’d had attractive students try to flirt their way to an A before. It was amazing how many thought fluttering lashes at him would do them any good.

Turning away, he went back to supervising the endeavors at hand. Two more hours and his teaching duties would be over, allowing him to focus on his own research. Of course, that entailed the odious task of drumming up funding and donations, something he wasn’t looking forward to, but…

Hang on…

John counted the heads bent over the counters, and realised not one was missing. All students accounted for. So who was out in the hallway, begging to be let inside, if not a student?

He looked up again, at the door, and the same face looked back at him, panic-stricken. His frown deepened. The blonde mouthed something at him, which he didn’t get, and stomped her foot, frustrated. She tapped on the glass again, beckoning at him… he realised that she wasn’t asking to come into the lab… she wanted him to come out into the hallway.

What on earth?

He glanced at his lab assistant, wondering if perhaps the blonde was trying to catch her attention, but no such luck.

The tapping got more aggressive, both in tempo and force, which was very distracting to several students and made John wince. This time, when he looked up to throw a GO AWAY glare at the pest, he stopped short.

Another face had popped up behind the blonde in the window of the door. It belonged to Jack Harkness.

A sinking feeling in his gut, coupled with the beseeching expression of the blonde and the urgent look on Jack’s face, brought him slowly to his feet.

“Keep an eye on the time,” he said to his assistant, and went over to the door, unlocking it cautiously. He opened it a crack and hissed, “What is it, Jack? In case you couldn’t tell, I’m a bit busy right now-”

The door was shoved wider, a hand shot out and seized him by the collar of his t-shirt, and he was yanked into the hallway. He barely had time to protest before he found himself being manhandled by both the blonde - whose floral perfume was worryingly familiar - and his friend.

They dragged him down the hall and opened a door where John was sure no classroom or lab existed.

He was right. It was a maintenance closet.

“What the hell!”

“Shh!” the blonde clapped her hand over his face, and pushed him down into a sitting position on a stack of boxes.

“Mmmf!”

Jack said, calmly, “Don’t make a fuss, Doc. Just listen. It’s an emergency.”

John struggled with the blonde, trying to push her hand off his face. He was too bewildered to notice her wrinkled dress, tangled hair, and smudged mascara, but still warm-blooded enough to notice that she was almost in his lap. There was something familiar about her… sort of… the perfume and the blondeness teased at his recall but it was an elusive, fleeting memory, quickly dispatched by his remaining hangover.

“Rose, get off him.” Jack shook his head. “You know, I was going to introduce the two of you properly after last night, but this is not how I imagined doing it.”

The blonde - Rose - faltered and grimaced in distaste. John felt a flash of unmitigated annoyance. As if he was any more pleased to hear such a thing coming from Jack’s lips!

Footsteps sounded past the door, and a loud voice could be heard saying, “I saw her going that way!”

Rose went white, and abruptly let go of John. She shoved past Jack, seized the door handle, and made a noise of distress. “It doesn’t lock!” she hissed, frantic.

“Obviously not,” said John disdainfully, rubbing at his mouth, “This is a maintenance closet! The caretaker locks it from the outside!”

“Shove that broom under the handle so it can’t be opened and get your butt back over here so we can talk about this.”

“What is going on?” John demanded, at his wit’s end.

At the same time, Rose said, “I’m not letting go of this door!”

“Fine, hold onto it if that makes you feel better.” Harkness turned back to John. “Please tell me at least _you_ remember what happened last night.”

“Tell me what the hell is going on right now, Jack, or so help me God, I’m going to-”

“Shh!”

“Keep your voice down,” said Jack. “We’re in here because we need privacy.”

“Privacy for what!?”

“To talk about what’s happened.”

“What’s happened?!”

Jack sighed. “I guess it was too much to hope at least one of you could hold your liquor.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Here.”

John took the device and scowled. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s a video. Watch it.”

‘Why-“

"Just watch it. And see that number on the bottom left hand corner? The one with the absurd amount of zeroes on the end?” Jack looked grim. “Yeah. That’s the amount of views it has.”

John felt a bit sick. His fingers trembled slightly, as he pressed play. Loud, pulsating club music filled the air - a noise like a dying whale sounded from the door - and two blurry forms appeared on the mobile screen. The video focused and cleared, and it became obvious that the two bodies were engaged in some rather, er, intimate dancing. One of them was tall and dark-haired, the other short and blonde. They had one thing in common: they were both piss drunk.

There was no mistaking who those two individuals were, and the longer he watched, the worse it got.

Approximately two minutes into the five-minute-long clip, video!Rose began grinding herself on parts of video!John that were hardly used these days, if he was being honest. It was no surprise, then, that video!John seemed to be immensely gratified.

Face gone scarlet, John looked up and asked in a hoarse voice, “Who filmed this? What-”

“No idea,” said Jack. “Doesn’t matter at this point. It’s all over the internet. The press picked up on it pretty quick.”

The… press?

“They’ve been chasing Rose down since around 5 this morning.”

Another dying whale noise.

“She’s normally much more sociable,” Jack said, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, “-You might know that from last night’s, ah, adventures, even if you can’t remember, but you’ll have to excuse her. Rose is a bit frazzled today.”

John paused the video, sweat prickling unpleasantly at his skin.

“I don’t understand,” he said, mouth dry. Nothing made sense.

Jack leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking completely cool, as if kidnapping a man from his laboratory and locking him into a broom closet was totally normal behaviour. John even had the niggling suspicion that he was amused. He said, slightly incredulous, “You really have no idea who she is, do you?”

That sick feeling in John’s gut intensified as he met a pair of meltingly brown eyes over Jack’s shoulder. He licked his lips and asked, “Should I?”

A shrug. “Ever heard of Vitex?”

“The soft drink company?”

(“Health drink!” snapped the beleaguered voice in the corner. )

“Bingo. You’re familiar with Pete Tyler, then?”

“The millionaire? Who isn’t?”

“Over there, guarding the door? That’s Rose Tyler, his daughter,” said Jack, eyes dancing, “-and she’s got a proposal for you.”  

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New chapter of this very silly, very enjoyable-to-write story :D Enjoy!

Under the cover of darkness, John quietly left the premises of the _we’re-open-late!_ convenience shop (rather spy-like, he fancied, though in reality he was a tall, gawky man loitering in front of a magazine rack wearing poorly chosen black clothing that made him stand out rather than blend in as desired). He exited by way of the back entrance, courtesy of a few quid slipped into the palm of the teenaged cashier at the front - just in time to be greeted by a nondescript black car with tinted windows. The passenger door opened with a sinister click to receive him, like a gaping black maw into the pits of some hellish prison he would not be able to escape.   
  
It was quarter after 11PM, Tuesday night. Four days after the Maintenance Closet Incident. Six hours after he’d got a call from an anonymous, private number, giving him the time and location of the rendezvous and further instructions. Five hours-and-fifty-nine minutes since he’d begun to truly understand what he was getting himself into, and to regret his decision to agree to it.

Feeling properly foolish, he ducked into the car, almost hitting his head on the roof. He’d barely got his seatbelt buckled when the car took off, speeding down the dark back alley for the motorway.  
  
Lowering his completely unsuspicious, totally hip looking-hood, John asked, “Was this truly necessary?”  
  
“Yes,” said Rose Tyler curtly, without so much as a glance at him. “Did you check to make sure no one was following you?”  
  
“No one was following me.”  
  
“You’re sure?”  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
She breathed out, slowly, and pressed a button on her mobile. The dial tone sounded. A male voice picked up after several rings.  
  
“Hello, Rose. Hello, John. I presume you just picked him up.”  
  
“Hi,” said John, quite frankly astonished by the level of planning that had gone into this endeavour.  
  
“Great. Sending you the GPS co-ordinates for the place. Don’t worry, Ianto’s uncle is expecting you. Ianto’s given him the deets.”  
  
Rose went pale beneath her sunglasses. She was literally wearing sunglasses, in the dark, in her car. It was extremely unsafe, but John was slightly frightened of her and did not want to broach the subject. He shifted nervously in his seat as she stepped on the gas pedal (unconsciously…? Out of rage…?) and hissed,  "You told Ianto?“   
  
"We don’t have secrets,” said Jack’s voice, slightly edged with static.   
  
“I’m going to kill you.”  
  
“Relax. If anyone should be in on this mess, it’s Ianto. He can help, Rose. He’ll save your bottom in the end, trust me. Both of you. Both your excellent bottoms.”  
  
Jack was laying it on a bit thick, John thought, but it was true that his husband was the single most organized and efficient person on the planet. Scarily so.  
  
“Fine,” Rose huffed, clenching her teeth almost as tightly as she was clenching the steering wheel. “We’ll be there in two hours.”  
  
“Drive safely, kids,” said Jack, and there was something that sounded suspiciously like laughter in his voice, except it was hard to tell over the tinny sound of the call. “Use this opportunity to get to know each other,” he suggested, and promptly rang off.   
  
His stomach did several somersaults as the car lurched dramatically, taking a curve too sharply before merging at top speed onto a happily more deserted route out of the city. _Oh good_ , thought John, _less people around to die in a fiery crash with._

“Take off your sunglasses,” he said, at last, unable to withstand the mental images of death by vehicular defenestration any longer. “It’s creeping me out.”

Her lip curled, but she obliged.   
  
“So. This ring. Special, is it? Couldn’t get it delivered? We’ve got to go and fetch it?” John waited for an answer, but it seemed Miss Tyler wasn’t in the mood to talk. Alright then. He could be silent, too. He was great at being silent.

A few seconds later, he said, “Nice car.”

“It’s a rental.”

“Oh.”

Silence.

John sighed, slumping in the passenger seat. Two hours was a long time to sit in silence next to one’s fake fiancée, whom one had only known for about roughly one week.

‘Fiancé’, she’d said, in an apparent fit of panic, to the wrong person at the wrong time when confronted with the video. They’d worked out a deal, the finer details of which were yet to be poured over. But in short, he would play the part, and she would pay him for it.

Selling out in the name of research, that wasn’t immoral, was it? They weren’t _hurting_ anybody. People got engaged and broke off engagements all the time, the rich and famous were notorious for it. He’d be in and out in six months, tops. It’d be fine.

It would also be highly unpleasant if they spent those six months in this sort of mood - silent and at odds with one another. They didn’t have to be friends, of course, but a good working relationship was in order. Still, his every attempt at friendly conversation so far had been rebuffed. He was too weary to try again. 

The drive went on in a long, excruciatingly slow fashion, and John kept himself sane by thinking about his research and ways in which he could improve his methodology. By the time they arrived, he was in a much better mood, having thought of a great opening for his upcoming research paper. It was doubly great because it also could potentially and completely discredit something his rival, Professor Harry Saxon, had recently published. Brilliant.

The jewelry shop was closed, it being well past one in the morning, but the door opened upon the sound of their footsteps on the welcome mat. Once again, John felt like he’d tumbled into a badly written spy film.

A shadowy figure in a suit said, “This way, Miss Tyler, Dr. Smith.”

He expected Rose to say, “Have you got the goods ready?” but she merely nudged John, indicating that he should go first.

The man who had let them in led them to the back of the shop, into a much better lit room. One side held a fancy chaise and table, and the other end had a glass counter, under which several sparkly rocks were on display. On the counter sat a blue box, covered in velvet.

Looking down, John saw that Rose’s hands were trembling, which made him feel bad. “Sit down for a sec, I’ll-”

“I’m fine,” she muttered, shutting his kind gesture down flat. She nudged him again in the back, forcing him forwards.

Dread filled John’s belly. Ianto’s uncle - the family resemblance was striking, honestly - smiled, a bit terrifyingly, and beckoned him over. _Braveheart,_ he told himself, _you’re doing this for a good cause._ It wasn’t real, anyway. He just had to buy the damn ring and get it over with.

He took the proffered box and flipped it open. He didn’t know much about jewelry, but this mammoth of a ring seemed appropriately grand. It had a bunch of diamonds - hopefully not blood diamonds, they’d have to check the provence - set in a silver band, sort of oldie-worldie looking. 

“How much?” he asked offhandedly, as if they weren’t going to buy it straightaway and take off into the darkness from whence they came.

Ianto’s uncle named a number.

“There’s been a mistake,” John said loudly, setting the thing down and turning back to face his companion. “This man wants me to give him ten thousand pounds for a ring.”

Rose Tyler stared up at him, nonplussed.

His palms began to sweat. “You’re joking. You must be. Ten thousand pounds! You’re bloody insane!”

“ _Oh my god,_ ” said Rose.

She shoved past him, shaking her head as if _he_ were the lost cause. John turned stiffly, still shocked and feeling like he’d lost his mind somewhere along the M5. He must’ve done. This could not really be happening.

Ianto’s uncle held the little blue box, hands careful not to crush the fragile, aging velvet. They couldn’t even put the bloody thing into a new box! John thought, incensed. It was robbery!

“Rings like this one are one-of-a-kind. It has history. It’s rare. It’s the kind of engagement ring most women only dream of having.”

John wanted to scream, _WE ARE NOT ACTUALLY GETTING MARRIED!_ but for some reason both Rose and Ianto’s uncle were keeping up a false charade, as if everyone in the room didn’t already know the truth.

“It’s a symbol,” said Rose.

“Symbols cost money,” said the older, more wrinkled version of Ianto.

“That is an absurd amount of money,” said John.

He thought of how much that wad of cash could mean, in the form of a grant or a donation to his research funds, and felt desolate. The world was unerringly unfair. All the money was in the hands of people like Rose Tyler, who had never lifted a finger her entire life to earn it, whereas people like himself, regular people, people who needed it to perform cutting-edge, life-altering, revolutionary medical research…

… People like him watched, helpless, as the Rose Tylers of the world forked over ridiculous sums of money for a chunk of blood-stained compressed rock and a band of metal, arbitrarily designated with value. It was senseless.

“I brought cash,” she said, shoving her hand into her bag and withdrawing a wad of banknotes that made John’s eyeballs bulge out of their sockets. “Should be enough. Here. Count it if you like.”

“Y-you carry that much cash on you?” Did rich people not use credit cards? Like regular people? Was this an ego thing, or-

“Not usually,” she said tersely. “Obviously I withdrew that especially for this.” He stared at her until she added, “To avoid a paper trail!” and scowled at him, as if to say _get up to speed, dumbo!_ Which he heard inside his head in the voice of his cousin Donna.

Thinking of Donna made him wince, because she was never going to believe this farce and he wasn’t allowed to tell her the truth. Which was bad for several reasons. Firstly, he was bad at lying to Donna, she could read him like a book. Secondly, he didn’t _want_ to lie to Donna. She was more than family, she was practically his best friend.

His expression seemed to give Rose Tyler the wrong impression, that he was _stupid_ or something, because she said impatiently, “A credit card purchase could be traced back. Someone would question it, me buying an engagement ring for myself.”

The implication being, of course, that John would have to buy the ring on his own credit card to make things believable. Which was clearly impossible, as he did not have ten thousand pounds lying around in his accounts. If he had, he would not be buying any engagement rings at all. He wouldn’t have been driving out to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night with a near stranger, carrying ten thousand pounds in her handbag. He wondered in a slightly hysterical fashion if they were unmarked bills. At this point, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

Regardless.

The ring was bought. It was a done deal. John felt faint.

Wrinkly!Ianto saw them off, wasting no time in ushering them out now that he’d swindled them out of their money. He was eager to go home to his cavern and curl up to emit smoke from his forked tail and count his precious, no doubt.

They returned to the rental car and climbed in, footsteps heavy. His qualms with the price aside, knowing that the Vitex heiress sitting next to him had an engagement ring in her pocket made the situation suddenly ten thousand times more real. Genuine apprehension gripped him, and he wondered if it were possible for this to actually work. Were they going to be able to fool _anyone_ , much less _everyone_? Would he be able to keep the secret from his friends, and from Donna? He was like a sieve and Donna was the master chef of prying his deepest secrets from his soul.

“Don’t tell anyone,” said Rose suddenly, eerily on cue. Almost as if she’d been privy to his thoughts.  
  
He swallowed. “Not even family?”  
  
“Especially not family! Whenever some big story leaks, who d'you suppose talked to the press? _Family._ ” Rose bit off the last word. 

Under his breath he muttered, “I feel sorry for you.”  
  
Oops. She’d heard that. She looked, all at once, surprised and aggressive and annoyed. Then it was gone, shut down by that marvelously unconvincing poker face of hers - Rose Tyler was not a great actress, despite her fame. Still, her voice evened out when she spoke again. “Don’t tell anyone, or I’ll consider it a breach of contract.”  
  
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “Got it.”  
  
They drove on in silence for a little bit, John wondering if he’d hit a sore spot. He supposed it was understandable. Presumably she had a lot more at stake here than he did, though he couldn’t imagine what her reason were besides saving face. He had his professional reputation to consider, too. As John mulled over the possibility of his sabbatical becoming permanent (God, what if-? The very thought made him shudder) a soft drizzle began, turning into larger raindrops, and then fat ones, and then a full-fledged downpour.  
  
“Shit!” Rose slammed her hands on the steering wheel, her eyes taking on that wild look again.  
  
Visibility was too poor to continue. It’d be foolish to attempt to drive back to London in this weather. John carefully offered, “We drove past a sign earlier saying there’s a bed and breakfast down the bend.”  
  
He let the sentence dangle, allowing his… his _employer_ to come to the decision herself.  
  
“Fine,” she said, after a moment of ferocious scowling at the windshield. Blimey, he was amazed the glass hadn’t shattered from it. A revv of the engine and a sharp swerve had the car turned around and John clutching his seat belt for dear life. They pulled into the driveway of the bed and breakfast, and ran to the rickety front porch, where a matronly woman wearing a blue apron promptly answered the door.  
  
“Hello, oh, you poor dears, you’re both soaked. Come in, come in!” She beamed, her face round and friendly in the warm glow of the low ceiling lamp. “Call me Margaret, dears, and make yourself at home. I’ve got just the room for the pair of you!”

Rose said, frazzled, “Two rooms, please-”, at the same as John, who said, “What in the bloody hell-”

This night could not get worse. Until it did. For he’d looked past kindly Margaret at the stairs behind her, and saw _them_.

Cats. Everywhere.

On the stairs. On the landing. On the railing,  swishing sinisterly about Margaret’s slippered feet, eyes glowing in the shadows of the unlit stairwell.

Hundreds of cats.

(OK, probably not hundreds, but close. Too many.)

“I can’t stay here,” he said.

No one listened.


End file.
